


Birthday Wishes

by witchbreaker



Category: Runaways (Comics)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:46:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4774040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchbreaker/pseuds/witchbreaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>None of the Runaways truly believed that they would live to see eighteen. Some of them did, some of them didn't. Here are their stories of their lives on the run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Molly Hayes

Yes, this is on FF.Net. I (ByeByeBye/Witchbreaker) have moved to AO3 and have brought my old fics with me. 

(X)

_Like all Runaways, Molly never really believed she would live to see eighteen._

 

Molly’s family is crowding around her as she has her face so close to the birthday candles that there’s a real risk of her lighting her hair on fire. The cake is chocolate, decked in enough icing to drown a whale, and further covered in sprinkles.

_Molly stopped believing she’d live to eighteen when Alex died. Watching the leader, traitor, get turned to ashes while not even mommy and daddy could do anything made her realizes that life could be taken. Painfully, fast, on a whim, it could be snatched away. Molly was eleven at the time and wishes she was like a lot of other kids. The ones that think they’re immortal and don’t know any better._

The small candles’ flames dance in Molly’s eyes. They spell out ‘Happy Birthday Molly!’ with love and warmth and she almost doesn’t want to blow them out, but it’s HER BIRTHDAY and OF COURSE you blow out the candles. Otherwise you don’t get to eat the cake. It’s a rule her parents made up; back when she still had a mommy and daddy, and it’s one of the few rules they made Molly hasn’t broken yet. ‘It’s a good one,’ She thinks. ‘Eating a cake on fire would hurt.’ 

_By Molly’s twelfth birthday she’s the only one that’s really a kid in the group. Everyone else grew up in a tight, painful way that kids do when they’re stuck dealing with things only adults should handle. Molly revels in this fact. Using it to act like a complete brat, gaining smiles and exasperated shouting each in turn, and remind the runaways that they ARE kids and it’s okay to act like it. Sometimes._

Her hat, a cartoonish basset hound with ears that goes down to her shoulders, flops forward for the sixth time in the last hour. One of her friends jumps, snatching the hat before it hits the candles, and tosses it into the corner. Molly complains about such cruelty to Mr. Floppy, but they all just shout for her to blow out the candles already. 

_On her thirteenth birthday Molly has lost more loved ones, homes, and pieces of herself then she ever thought she could. Gert is dead, Old Lace was thought dead but they find her, Xavin has taken Karolina’s place when a bunch of Majesdians jerks came to place her on trial for THEIR war, the gang has lost three bases, and Molly has been stuck in the middle of two wars. Those are the highlights, the things Molly focuses on because if she looks at all the little cuts, tears, rips, stains, she’ll go crazy and she’s seen what crazy people do, and then bounds off on all the good things. Like how they have new family members in Klara whose from eighteenth century and Victor who’s the son of Ultron and a super-nice Hispanic lady, and friends in the Young Avengers and maybe even those Academy kids if they stop acting like tools all the time._

Molly pouts and refuses to do so without her hat. There goes a bunch of grinning and sighs and yelling, but she gets her hat. Tilting it back, she makes a wish. It’s the same one she’s made for the last seven years.  
_On Molly’s fourteenth birthday things have….gone okay this year. They’re still in L.A., but money got really tight at one point so when Chase’s non-crazy Uncle Hunter offers Chase a part time job doing some protection of parts being shipped into L.A. They all hate it but it gets them more then enough more to live on and only a few incidents where Chase actually need to get off his butt and do something. This is the year they hear that Xavin has been executed by the Masjedians. Karolina didn’t come out of her room for a month no matter what they did. They all took a break from heroing for a while. It helped that a new avenger team is on the west coast to deal with stuff. Though Molly catches a story about a mutant who finally got his power restored by the Scarlet Witch took out a convenience store robber. The tv station asks why he did it and he said did it because the Runaways showed him that you didn’t have to wear tights to be a hero. Molly didn’t stop grinning or showing the others that story for MONTHS._

Everyone is grinning like idiots and happy like sunshine. Molly will treasure this moment all her life because she knows well, all too well, that these are rare and precious and have to be treasured or life sucks more than it already does.

_Molly is fifteen today and it’s the worst birthday ever. There’s an invasion right here in L.A. and the Runaways are the only superheroes that live on the west coast anymore. It’s part of a freaking huge one going on all around the world and Molly is sure not all of them are going to make it out alive. They don’t. Chase goes down near a hospital and help from a wonderfully awesome medic is the only thing that keeps him alive long enough to pass of the psychic link with Old Lace onto Molly. His last words are “You’re amazing Mols. Don’t forget th-“ and then he’s gone just like Mommy, Daddy, Alex, Gert, Xavin…. The invasion is repelled by the grieving teens and they quickly disappear from the scene, taking Chase’s body and burying it next to Gertrude’s. This time Molly can’t NOT focus on the grief and spends her time with Klara and Lina Beans huddled together trying to deal with the fact that they lost another member of their small family. Nico and Victor do it by themselves in a bedroom. It feels like the walls have disappeared around them just like it did when they lost their parents. Nico and Victor eventually come out of their room; Klara, Molly and Karolina untangle themselves and they face the reality of their situation and come together once more. Nico and Victor take up Chase’s roll of breadwinner while the others return to fighting crime in the blistering sun city of Los Angelus. The good news is that Lina’s no longer staying for days at a time in her room alone._

Everyone wants to know what Molly wished for, but she steadfast refuses. Since birthday wishes don’t come true if you tell people. The cake is cut and Molly piece is so huge that she is sure she’ll be sick later but she couldn’t care less. Old Lace nuzzles her neck and then steals a section of the birthday girl’s slice before she can do anything about it. Molly isn’t sure when Old Lace got so sneaky, but she’s noticed that the dinosaur becomes more and more independent each time it changes owners. One day Molly thinks they won’t need to pass on the link and Old Lace will stick around after the owner, whoever that is, dies. 

_Sixteen is suppose to be sweet. A big, wild party to celebrate only two more years until eighteen, but Molly can remember only one other birthday that’s filled her mouth with such a bitter taste. Nico got pregnant by Victor and now they have two new members who everyone loves so much it makes everything sunshine and puppies some days. They didn’t get married despite Klara’s shock. Nico insisted that she would keep the kids but wasn’t ready for even the idea of marriage and Victor reluctantly agreed with her. Klara admitted privately to Molly that she understands why Nico wouldn’t want to do it as marriage isn’t all what it’s cracked up to be. Molly calls them Uno and Dos, even though their names are Maria Gertrude Mancha and Charlie Chase Mancha. Then joys of joys happen and they get another member added to the group. A girl name Cindy who ran away from her evil parents, heard about their club, and hoped that they would protect her. They do, but she betrays them. Turns out she was working for her parents the whole time and almost kills the twins. Klara dies saving them and Nico fulfills the promise she always makes when they think that one member of their group is going to betray them and rips out the bitch’s heart. Molly doesn’t feel bad about using that word when it comes to Cindy. All they have left of Klara is a rose covered body and a garden that sprang up to defend the twins. Karolina spends all her days in the garden, tending to it while Molly watches the twins and Nico and Victor fight to keep L.A. safe and along with their family. It’s this year that Molly goes out and gets tattoos with the names and epitaphs for all the Runaways that have died. Because they have to be written down somewhere and her back is a lot stronger than a hunk of stone._

The cake is devoured and then Molly bounce straight over to the presents. It’s a small pile, but each one is so very precious because her FAMILY gave them to her and nothing could make them not superbly awesomeness. Wrapping paper goes flying as she opens the first one; which is a new hat. Molly whips off Mr. Floppy and proudly dawns an equally large and cartoonish duck one. Molly makes an awesome pose, which the runaways snap pictures of and laugh at. 

_Molly’s seventeenth birthday year is the year of shocks. The Young Avengers, who are really full Avengers but nobody calls them that, show up at their door with Xavin. He/she is missing an arm and has burns all over her body, but nothing stops the whole team from sweep him/her up into a massive group hug. They had all miss the prickly shape-shifter and can’t wait to hear the story about how he/she made it back home. Turns out the Young Avengers had a space adventure to Skrull and Hulking did indeed manage to save the empire. The masks heroes insist it wouldn’t have been possible without Xavin who had managed to fake getting executed and get to Skrull but couldn’t find any ship will to take him to earth until the Young Avenger showed up. Molly’s eyes mist up when Xavin pulls out the compass she had given him/her all those years ago and flat out bawls when Xavin says it did it’s job though she wonders why the Masjadians thought sending, who they thought was Karolina, in a tube into the sun would kill her. Victor shrugs and says maybe they like the irony. Time passes and Molly asks Xavin and Karolina why they don’t get married here on earth, Nico mentions that they do know a priest, and Victor chips, while balancing the twins in both arms, that Karolina is old enough to be married on earth by now. The two long time fiancés look at each other and decide to do it. The wedding is small, held in the church that Cloak and Dagger hid out in when they came to the Runaways for help, but it is worth it. Nico is the bridesmaid, Hulkling the best-man, Molly is the floor girl and ring bearer, while Victor leads Karolina down the isle. There’s only a few guest: the rest of the Young Avengers, a few members of the Academy Avengers, the Twins, and Old Lace. It’s perfect and goes off without a hitch. Their honeymoon is a week in Malibu alone and carefree. It’s around this time that Uno and Dos show signs of inheriting their mother’s talent for magic. Nothing big happens, but toy float a little of the ground everyone once in a while and Dos shows a knack for making flames twist into different images. Something that makes Molly smile because she remembers when Chase you to do the same with his Fistigons and whispers those stories into Charlie’s ear instead of the regular bedtime tales._

The sugar has really hit her system and Molly is practically bouncing off the walls. She zips around everyone. Giving hugs to one person, tackling another, shouting that this is THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER! And that SHE IS EIGHTEEN WOOHOO! This shows her family that life can be good and kind some days and they are forever grateful for the reminder. The twins are keeping up with her and soon everyone is fooling around with what Molly is sure of the biggest, best, most awesomest smiles on their faces. 

_Molly eighteenth birthday year is just starting so she doesn’t know what will happen yet. She doesn’t know that after some begging from Xavin, they have an adorable baby girl who managed to somehow get not one but both parents powers. It makes it hard to hide her because she is in either the Skrull natural form or the Masjedian one, but Xavin assures the group that he/she will teach baby, Anelle Ashley Dean, to hide in human form once she is old enough. Molly doesn’t know that she will off-handily mention the epitaph tattoo she for Xavin that she needs to cross out and Xavin will ask to see it or that Xavin will insist she not cross it out because he can’t think of another epitaph he would want to have. It is just his name with the words ‘dear friend and warrior for peace’ underneath it. Molly doesn’t know that this is the year that she will have to add Victor’s name to her back or that Nico will retreat from the battle field to raise the kids while Xavin steps up and takes command on the fights._

_Since she is not nineteen, Molly doesn’t know that that year will be the year where Nico preforms a spell that brings all the Runaways, even the dead ones, to fight against a massive army that’s threating the entire west coast starting with Los Angelus. They will stand before the enemy, scared but ready to fight, and when they are asked who they are Nico will utter the line she so many years ago and call them Children of the Damned and that will set off the battle. The fight is epic and the Runaways win with all their members intact for once. The dead ones go back to being dead after the battle but Molly was really glad to see them even Alex. Except for Klara. Nobody can figure out why, but Nico guesses that Klara really wasn’t dead all these years, but Molly doesn’t care. She has her best friend back and that is ALL that matters though she’s kind of annoyed that the Children of the Damned name seems to have stuck. It’s too dreary for her tastes._

_Twenty hasn’t come around yet, so Molly doesn’t know that Nico will take a bullet in the head for her or that Uno will take up the Staff of One in grief and defeat the villain of the day. That this time it’s her, the youngest of the Pride’s kids, will take up the leadership position and finally understand why Nico hated it all those years._ _Molly doesn’t know that twenty will be the year that they lose PEOPLE and that Karolina and Xavin will go next and together as a terrifying foe comes after her family personally. That she will make her first, cold, methodical kill by ripping that foes head off. Molly will spend one day grieving, she’s gotten good at grieving quick and fast, and then grab the important stuff, Klara, Old Lace, Uno, Dos, and Anelle, jump into the Leapfrog and head into outer-space before the world tries to take away everything because of what that bastard, Molly doesn’t feel any shame in using that word nowadays after all she is twenty now, made it seem like he was the victim._

_Twenty-one is still far off, so Molly is in the Dark that she will be spending a lot of time acting like a cheery, child-like Han Solo to make ends meet or that she will go by the name Bruiser and call every family member she knows by their codenames to keep from being tracked down by the Earth governments. Xavin, Victor, Klara, Maria, Charlie, and Anelle don’t’ have codenames so Molly calls them Warrior Friend, Lighting Rod, Rose Queen, Uno, Dos, and Sunfire, respectively. That their ship is called Leapfrog only in private and that their group is the Children of the Damned or how everyone will say what a fitting title it is._

_Molly doesn’t know a lot of things, but she suspects. A little of her parents mental powers got passed onto her, manifesting in some very accurate hunches. It won’t be anything that Molly notices right away or will depend on, but they let her know that life is going to be hard, scary, fun, and short. Because Molly isn’t going to live to see twenty-two and when the time comes she will be perfectly alright with that. Twenty-one will be the year that Molly tells Anelle what she wishes for on every birthday for the last ten years and Anelle will quietly do the same even after Molly is long gone._

 

“I wish everyone would make it another year!”


	2. Klara Prast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klara had dreams once. Some of them came true, some didn't, and some she wished hadn't.

_Klara use to spend her days wishing she would never live to see another._

It was dark and all Klara knew was that she was in the no-man’s land of waking and dreaming and in pain. The dull, deep, aching pain that made her want to fall completely asleep, but instead kept her awake…..almost. 

_Klara is running, fumbling really, through the streets of New York City. She’s not sure where she is going or what sort of madness is compelling her to desperately try and find the wonder named Molly, but it’s too late to take back the decision. Her husband is trapped in the room they share by a garden of roses that had sprung up when Klara couldn’t take his hitting her, touching her even when she protested, degrading her any more. Molly and Karolina maybe sinners, but they had never even attempted to do those things to her. If being a good devout girl meant putting up with everything that her husband does to her forever than Klara didn’t want to be good anymore._

The pain recedes eventually. The darkness never goes away though Klara feels the warmth of the sun on her skin. Roses whisper in her ear. Telling her to sleep, to rest, that she needs both, but Klara can’t quiet manage either and stays in the land of waking sleep. 

_The first time Klara is on the streets of New York City of the 21st century is very similar and drastically different from the first time she was there in the 1800s. It similar because she is stunned at what she sees. Nothing could be so different from her family farm in Bern than the towering, shiny metal towers of New York, the strange people, and overwhelming sights. It’s similar because Klara can’t pick her jaw up off the floor or spinning wildly to see everything single thing that Molly insists on pointing out._

It’s different because the people she is with find her awe of this new world unlike her who smacked her to make her stop gawking. It’s different because not five minutes into her stay in the 21st century there is an invasion of people who look a lot like the shape-shifter called Xavin. Then Klara is trapped in a war as her saviors try to decide whether to run or fight. After more bloodshed than the young girl ever wanted to see, they decide to run. 

The sun vanishes. Klara feels like she is trapped in an endless night. The roses stop whispering; too tired to do anything just like Klara is too tired to wake up. 

_The first thing she knows once the group of runaways is settled into their new home in Malibu is that she loves California. The sun, the breeze off the ocean, the clear air. All of it makes her feel light and contented. Klara is confused about a lot of things that she see, but the feeling of safety makes her ignore the confusion. It last until the Masjedians show up and try to take Karolina away from them. By the end of the fighting, Xavin tricks everyone and goes in Karolina’s place to face the angry remains of the Majesdian people. Klara watch Karolina fold up into herself bit by bit after Xavin left. Hiding out in her room, barely talking to the others. It’s only when there’s a fight or some sort of action that the group NEEDS to take that she gets involved. Klara would love to help her, but she doesn’t know how and stays by Molly’s side._

The silence eats away at the young plant manipulator. How long has she been in the darkness? Days? Weeks? Years? 

“Please,” she begs silently. “Someone, anyone, talk to me. Let me know I’m not alone.”

She then strains her ears and after eternity hears the faint singing of the grass. Never has the idle, nonsensical, murmurs of plants made her feel so much joy. The grass say nothing interesting, but they are talking. Klara listens to those noises so hard she thinks her ears are bleeding and she cries out, begging the small plant to talk with her. It does reluctantly and through the teachings of grass Klara learns to speak with all the plants around her. The darkness is still everywhere, but Klara is no longer alone and that is all that matters. 

_Time passes with amazing quickness after that. Soon Klara is fighting zombies, playing video games, not bothering to truly understand the world she has run to, and breaks the habit of praying she doesn’t wake up in the morning. It’s amazing, it’s fun, it’s not everything she’d dreamed for, but much more than good enough. All this comes to a screeching halt when her new family decides to throw a party they call a prom. A small plane crashes through the house. The Leapfrog is destroyed, the house in ruins, and confusion reigns._

_“She can’t be dead, she can’t be dead, she can’t be dead.” Klara chants in her head until Nico confirms that Old Lace has truly died protecting her and the young girl can hold it together no longer. She lashes out, the plants exploding as they feel her pain and envelop the ruins of her home. Nico puts her to sleep with a sleep as the vines start to hurt those around her. By the time Klara wakes back up a man she doesn’t recognize is offering them a roof over their heads. She wants to take the offer, but the others refuse. They will not be bound to anyone no matter how genuine his wish to help them is. The runaways take a new Leapfrog and drift around the West Coast for a while. Chase is not with them and it is only three weeks later that Molly insists that they need to look for him. He is found in a Los Angeles hospital, in a coma. The doctors tell them that he has been like that for three weeks since he was hit by a car. Nico refuses to leave his bedside and Klara hears her privately swear that she will never let another runaway just disappear ever again._

The sun returns and with it comes rain. Klara starts to feel whole again as the roses are talking, singing, whispering, again. The darkness doesn’t seem so scary now; in fact it is comforting. It reminds her of the spring rain that fell in Bern. The kind that brings life and hope to the plants even though it casts a shadow over the land. 

_Klara admires Molly greatly. She still is much like the bouncing innocent girl that Klara first met all those years ago. They’ve gotten news that Xavin has been executed and even when Karolina starts to fall apart; Nico, Victor, and Chase all cry over the news while Klara hugs Molly and wish she could have taken his/her’s place on that alien ship. Xavin might not has been the most loved runaway, but he/she had been a loyal friend. The one thing that no one had ever doubted was that the shape-shifter would stick by them no matter what and that was so precious to this group that he/she was mourned by all of them._

_“Like a thick fog.” Klara whispers to Molly. “I can barely breathe with this pain in the air.”_

_“Then let’s go for a swim!” The mutant responds and pulls her towards the beach. They spend the afternoon playing there and even though nothing is truly better Klara is breathing easier. It is after they come back that Chase says that he thinks he is starting to feel Old Lace again. The runaways don’t hesitate to go looking for the dinosaur and Klara has never been so happier than when they found Old Lace alive in a old world with the help of the some Avengers._

The rain ends, but the ground is so wonderfully damp that Klara has no trouble spreading her roots, reaching out her branches, and unfolding her leaves. The sun eagerly baths her in light though it has a tendency to snip her branches when she spreads out too far. 

The roses take to speaking with the sun on the most beautiful days. Klara cannot hear what the sun says, but she can guess from how the roses react. 

 

_The world is on fire. Invaders attempt to burn her home of Malibu to the ground. She fights so hard, calling on not just the roses to tear her enemies apart, but the grass and the trees and the seaweed. The world answers her call of rage and tries valiantly to stem the flood of blades, fire, and bodies. Her flesh is burning along with her roses, but the flood stops. To her undying disgust, Klara uses the blood to put out her flaming hands and goes off to find the others. It takes hours to do so and the first one she finds is Molly. Klara sways and falls to the ground._

_“N-n-no.” She gasps out. “Heavenly Father please let this not be.” But it is. Molly is clutching Chase’s corpse, Old Lace growling her grief as the rest of her family arrives. No one knows how to deal with this. Chase had been the walls of the group, the one that sheltered them, the one that had always had their back from the beginning. Everything feels wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG. The group fractures into two groups: one of Molly, Karolina, and herself; and the other Victor and Nico. The groups huddle together; crying, mourning, telling tales of the man that should never had died. It is only on the whim of hungry stomachs, that they see each other a week later. Nico looks at Karolina, Molly rubs Old Lace’s snout, and Klara stares at Victor for guidance as they huddle around the kitchen table._

_“We need to find a way to make money.” Nico says after a moment. “The food is running out and we’re broke.”_

_“Maybe Uncle Hunter’s offer is still open?” Klara asked. Everyone looks at the witch._

_“He did give Chase a job when we were in a tight place before.” Victor points out. Nico closes her eyes._

_“Okay, I’ll talk to him later today. See if I can take Chase’s job.” Victor insists on going with Nico and the others wait impatiently. Hunter does give Nico and Victor Chase’s old job and they don’t worry about food for a while._

The grass is annoyed. It had grown so high and now has been cut down. It whines that no one likes to see it grow high and all Klara can do is giggle at that while the roses scorn the grass for thinking it could take up it’s space. Rain sprinkles down and the grass stops complaining. Everyone stops talking when it rains. Like a feast has just been presented to them and all anyone can do is eat. Klara drinks it in as well though she vaguely remembers a time when she drunk rain out of a glass.

“Was there something before this?” She asks the roses. “Something before the darkness?” 

“Yes,” They chatter. “You forgot, don’t worry. Rest and heal just rest and heal.” Klara thinks about this and falls asleep.

_They have just celebrated Klara’s birthday when Nico announces she is pregnant. Everyone is over joyed. Klara is bubbling with excitement for the first time in a long time. She has always wanted children and can’t wait for the twin to be born. The plant manipulator is shocked to learned that Nico and Victor, the father, aren’t going to get married. Nico insists that she is going to keep the children, but isn’t ready to marry. Klara doesn’t understand this, but remembering her own experience as a married woman she respects Nico decision not to._

_The twins are absolutely adorable and are called Maria and Charlie though Molly calls them Uno and Dos. Klara spends the most time around them since she is the only one with any experience taking care of very young children. Klara’s mother made her watch her aunt’s babies when the woman was too busy with her older children and working to do so. She doesn’t like sharing them with the new member of the group Cindy. The girl had run away from her evil parents and sought their protection. The runaways give it, but Cindy is too careless when handling the twins. The roses are the ones to alert Klara that Cindy is more than just careless. The plant manipulator arrives just in time to stop the girl from killing Maria and Charlie. Their battle is fierce, but it is Klara that goes down. Dying, she throws her last bit of power into creating a huge rose garden to protect the twins._

“Forget, forgot, I forgot, I…..must remember.” Klara whispers to herself. 

“Rest and heal, rest and heal.” The roses whisper back. 

“No, I must remember. Tell me.” She demands. “Tell me what I am forgetting. Tell me of before the darkness.” The roses reluctantly agree, but their tale is far to short for to be all of her past. Klara turns to the trees and the grass, but learns less. Frustrated she shuts out their voices and focuses on herself. 

“I must remember. I must remember.” She whispers as she tries to bring up the foggy memories. 

_Klara doesn’t wake up until Nico casts a spell that forces her to fight once more. She is not the only one the now powerful and deadly witch has brought back. All the runaways that have died have appeared. Each hungry for a fight and burning with their own power._

_The battle is fierce, worse then the invasion where they lost Chase. Klara is coated in blood by the time it is over, Karolina has used up all her power and is barely supporting a un-conscience Xavin, Molly is trying to drag herself out of the bodies of her enemies, Nico is out and being held by Victor who Klara realizes is dead because his body starts to fall apart as he holds the witch gently in his arms, Old Lace has wrapped herself around the bodies of Chase and a purple haired lady that Klara doesn’t know whom are clutching each other as they turn back to bones, and there is a black boy that comes out of the house where Maria and Charlie and Karolina and Xavin’s baby are hiding. He looks at everyone with a sad look on his face before becoming dust._

_Hobbling towards Molly, Klara takes the mutant’s hand and fails to help her pull herself out from the pile she is buried under._

_“Ew, you’re all slimy.” Molly whines. Klara can feel tears come to her eyes and gives another weak pull._

_“You never change do you?” She asks softly._

_“Nope!” Molly replies and wiggles the last bit free. “Nobody can change Princess Powerful!” Laughing hard Klara hugs her old friend and rock despite the complaints._

 

“Remember, Remember, Remember.” Klara chants softly and she does. She remembers her family and cruel husband. She remembers the runaways and how they became her new family. Each thing she remembers is recounted as a story to the roses. They find these tales boring, but listen all the same. 

“And then Chase died. We all wept.” Klara says brokenly, trying to pull together bits and pieces into one picture. 

“You should rest and heal, rest and heal.” The roses respond. It’s how they always do when she ends a story. 

“No, I’m going to remember.” Klara snaps and starts again from the earliest thing she can remember. Building the tale of her life once more. 

_Klara doesn’t know why she didn’t go back to being dead like the rest of the runaways Nico brought back. Ideas are thrown around, but nobody really cares. They have her back and that is all that is important. Klara worries though about why a single red rose is now growing from her hair, but Molly tells her not to worry about it._

_It’s a different world she came back to. Victor has died in her absence and Xavin returned. Klara misses the cyborg, horribly. He took over Chase’s place as a big brother after the blonde’s death. She is happy to have Xavin back, but she will always have a hole in her heart over Victor’s death. Nico is….dark now. Her grief has become as much a part of her as the Staff of One. The air of sharp calculation and distrust she levels at all who are not part of the family or close friends is enough to make Klara twist in worry. The only goodness Klara can see comes when Nico is playing with the twins, who she shows nothing, but pure mother’s love. Xavin and Karolina have changed as well. Their child has made them grow, learn, strengthen. They approach teaching Anelle with eagerness, confusion, and love, but this is difficult for them. They don’t know how to instill in the little baby girl all the morals they want to and they can’t go by the same methods their parents used to raise them. Molly is the only member of the group that is still the same or at least that’s what Klara thinks at first. Then she notices how Molly doesn’t make stupid comments anymore or how she listens to what everyone says and is now the voice of reason for all. The voice of restraint. Klara can’t help, but find this all strange, but deals with it like she has dealt with life before. Take it, absorb it, and then let the new reality of life become one with her. She has never been one to mope about how the past was better and she doesn’t intend to start._

The roses have started to sing much to Klara’s confusion. They’ve never sung before, but something has them all bursting with joy. Klara pulls herself out of her fragmented memories as realizes it is a new sun. One that plays with her leaves, dances through the grass, and climbs into her branches awkwardly, but with much enthusiasm. Klara can feel herself blooming from the attention, she had always loved children, while secretly wishing she could see what this young sun looked like. The feeling reminded her of Karolina.

“Karolina…..” the plant-manipulator whispered. “She is like a sun, she tried to save me, but I refused at first, she is kind.” Klara found that these memories were easier to grasp than the others. “Molly did too. Even when I rejected them.” Klara turned her thoughts away from the new sun and back into the darkness, back into her memories. 

_Klara has never had to deal with a change so huge before as she watches the earth shrink into a tiny dot. The Children of the Damned, as the runaways are now called, have been forced to flee the planet, their home, because of Klara. Her true father was apparently an earth elemental. That had shocked Klara to her core, but was even worse is that there was a prophesy saying that one of his children would lead to his downfall. The Man, for Klara cannot truly think that he is her father, thought he had killed all of his children except he had missed Klara because she had been taken into the future by the runaways. The Man had only recently learned Klara was alive when Nico brought her back from whatever dead, half-living, sleeping state she had been in. The Man had spent a year carefully planning Klara’s death and had just pulled it off yesterday._

_“Red Rose,” Molly called out, in a rare moment of seriousness. “Stop staring. It’s not going to help.”_

_But Molly’s words can’t make Klara move. They can’t bring her out of remembering how The Man had gotten Xavin and Karolina killed. How he framed Klara herself for their murders and it was only by the stubborn faith of Molly that she was alive now. Klara couldn’t stop from seeing a disturbingly calm Molly rip off The Man’s head while Klara held him down._

_“Red Rose!” Molly shouted, shaking Klara’s shoulder. “You have to come out of it! The kids need you!”_

_Klara tears her eyes away from earth and looks at Molly. So many things she wants to say, to scream, to rage, but Molly is right. The twins and Anelle are crying for her, for their parents, for anyone and Klara is the only one that can answer their call as they hang onto Old Lace. Molly was never good at dealing with screaming children._

_“You’re right.” Klara replied, pulling away from the window. Taking a step towards the children she paused. “Why are you calling me that?”_

_“That’s your name now.” Molly said sternly. “We can’t use our real names anymore. We’ll be tracked down, separated, and thrown in jail if people catch us.” Klara nodded. The Man had managed to convince the world that she had killed Xavin and Karolina, and that she and Molly had just murdered him in cold blood for no reason. They could never go back home again._

_“I like it.” Red Rose replied before gently picking up Anelle, soon to be Sunfire, with one hand and petting Old Lace with the other._

Klara could feel the earth hum. It was a pleasant tune. One that made her want to hum back and grow. To spread out and cover the world with her branches, leaves, and roots. It seems like such a pleasant idea that Klara becomes highly annoyed when the old sun starts snipping back her branches.

“You are you doing that?” Klara asks, but receives no answer so she goes back to listening to the earth. Who’s humming is becoming more and more song like. For once in a long time, Klara stops trying to remember and listens. The hum shifts into song then into words and Klara is suddenly wish she hadn’t. 

Sleep and heal, little flower girl  
Sleep and heal,  
The Green Man knows  
About your growing roots  
Sleep and heal, darling rose  
The Green Man knows,  
That his little rot is blooming  
Sleep and heal, little flower girl  
Sleep and heal  
The Green Man knows  
And he is coming  
To kill you

_Red Rose screams._

_This could not be happening. All the blood couldn’t possibly be coming from Molly, Bruiser’s body._

_“NO!” Shout Uno, Dos, and Sunfire. All together their voices shake the palace grounds. Molly pulls herself up and hands the Emperor the package that they had been paid to deliver. The package was an ancient medallion said to have belonged to a powerful ruler. The Children and the Damned had picked up the medallion with only a bit of trouble, but on the way to deliver it, they had been attacked by rebels seeking to use the power of the medallion to overthrow the Emperor. The Children of the Damned had fought tooth and nail to finish their job. Egged on by Bruiser, who refused to say why it was so important just that they HAD to get this job done. Now she had paid the price. Bleeding out with a smile on her face, Bruiser placed the medallion in the Emperor’s hand._

_“Job’s done your Majesty!” She said and then collapsed. Red Rose raced over to her as the Emperor caught the mutant._

_“Get the medallion!” A rebel cried out, one of dozens that had swarmed the palace in during this coup. Red Rose had just torn Bruiser out of the Emperor’s arms when those words were uttered and for the first time ever Red Rose let loose her powers in an utter rage._

_“DIE!” She screamed, every single plant, from every blade of grass to tree to shrub grew to monstrous heights and strangled, pierced, sliced, squeezed, and shredded the rebels. They didn’t stop until Uno, Dos, and Sunfire came over to her and wrapped their arms around the grieving plant-manipulator.  
_ _“Hey Anelle,” Molly gasped out. Sunfire, Anelle, hugged her arm tightly. “Take care of Old Lace.” And with those last words the psychic connection to the dinosaur past from Molly to Anelle as the mutant breathed her last breath._

_Red Rose cried so hard as she clutched the body of Bruiser. She didn’t let go of it for a long time. Bruiser was the last of the original Children of the Damned, their leader, their parent for the kids, and best friend for Red Rose. The tears wouldn’t’ stop until after her funeral. The Emperor had been deeply moved by Bruiser’s sacrifice and built a fine tomb for the mutant. He had also offered to give positions at his palace for the rest of the Children of the Damned, but all had refused. They couldn’t bear to live in the place where Bruiser had died. He understood that so he promised to always have work for them._

_‘It’s a great relief.’ Red Rose decided as she took the helm of Leapfrog the Fourth. For the last year they had been struggling to get by, sometimes facing the very real threat of dying of hunger, thirst, or having the Leapfrog break down in the emptiness of space because they couldn’t repair it._

_Nobody will mention it directly, but it will weigh on Red Rose’s shoulders for the rest of her life; that Bruiser’s death brought them security and safety for the first time in years. For the first time, Red Rose doesn’t have to push Sunfire and Uno and Dos to grow up faster than they should because she’s not worried whether or not she will live another day._

_Five years after Molly’s death that will change. They are run into a boy. He doesn’t have a name and the only piece of information they get out of him is that he is the first of his kind, of a new race of soldiers his planet is making. Red Rose takes one look at the boy that is constantly shifting from being rock to water to air to tree to fire to anything you can think of and names him Adam._

_They meet him again, but this time Adam is trying to capture them. Red Rose in particular. His people want to figure out how she makes plants grown and shrink at her command so they can give that ability to their newly made soldiers. All of them are thrown into separate cells. Red Rose is kempt asleep by drugs so the first thing she knows after being captured is that someone is shaking her shoulder and trying to get her to wake up._

_“Red Rose, Red Rose, please wake up.” A male voice that is definitely not Dos’s calls._

_“Move aside.” Sunfire snaps. “Klara,”_

_Red Rose jolts awake and realizes that she is wrapped in chains and her family plus Adam are standing around her._

_“We need to get out of here FAST.” Dos says and Red Rose nods. The chains are broken and they are running again. Running through the prison, the planet, space. Adam comes with them. It makes things stressful on the Leapfrog for a bit as Dos doesn’t truly accept Adam at first because he did capture them and Sunfire grows jealous of Adam’s ability to fluidly change shapes, something she has yet to master. Red Rose finds there is much to teach Adam as well. The well-trained soldier knows a lot about war, how to kill, and engineering._

_“So that we could build and use weapons better.” He explains when he easily comes up with a solution to fix the Leapfrog’s power coils. An issue that had been plaguing the Children of the Damned for years._

_He doesn’t know about people, about life and culture and how to look at the universe in terms of how beautiful it is instead of how it can be used to harm others. This is what Red Rose teaches him. She taps into the same patience she used to teach Uno how to read, Sunfire how to do haggle, and Dos how to write. The process is slow, but bit by bit Red Rose can see Adam becoming more human and less soldier. Though he doesn’t loose all of it, which helps now that his people are after them not just for Red Rose, but to get their soldier back. She can tell he has a crush on her, but does nothing. Red Rose thinks of him as another one of her family and knows deep down that she will never be with another man. The wounds from her marriage are healed, but they have not vanished and Red Rose is much more comfortable living her celibate life than she will ever be if she was with someone._

Klara tries to get the song out of her head. She fails. The whole earth is singing it, including the roses. The idea that someone is coming to kill her throws into disorder. 

Who would want to do such a thing? Who is this Green Man? Why does he want her dead? These questions plague her over and over and over until Klara feels like she is going to die from worry. It is only with the return of the two suns that she feels any sort of the peace; they sooth her with their light and warmth. When even that doesn’t help to ease all of her worry, she goes back to trying to remember her life. This time to see if she knows who the man is that the earth speaks of. 

“Who are you?” She asks. Trying to remember if she had done anything to anyone to make them come after her personally and finds more than one candidate. The runaways have been working hard to keep Los Angeles free of super-villains. “Why are you coming to kill me?”

_Red Rose knows that this will be her last stand._

_“Come on Red Rose! Please! Klara!” Sunfire screams behind her. The Leapfrog has been damage and Adam is working as hard as he can repair it, but there isn’t enough time before an army of lizard dog like beast crashed down on their heads. They are currently in a canyon where the only entrance to their spot is through a narrow valley, but that was far from where they were right now. Red Rose looked back at her family. Adam was staring at her, begging with his eyes for her to come over. Uno and Dos were holding hands the other carrying the Staff of One and the Book of Magic respectively. Sunfire was hovering off the ground and screaming for her as Old Lace echoed her mistress’s plea for Red Rose to back._

_"Take care of each other!” She shouted to them and ran for the entrance. The desert like planet they were on erupting with life as she went to meet the army of beasts. She prayed they listened to her for the growls of the beasts were making the ground shake. Red Rose met them with utter calm. She plugged the entrance, merging into the plants to strength her control over them. It worked for a while. Unable to use their vast numbers effectively the beasts tore more of each other apart than Red Rose before they actually managed to touch her. The last thing she saw was the Leapfrog taking off into space as the beasts tore her to pieces._

**RISE, CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED, AND FIGHT ONCE MORE.**

Klara’s true eyes snapped open, her body lurched with in the roots she was covered in, and she became desperate to move. Breaking through the her tomb, Klara saw sunlight for the first time in years, but it didn’t matter to her. She had to go. Had to fight. Her family was calling her.


	3. Chase Stein

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He never thought he was good enough. Not for the people that mattered the most.

Hiss, crackle, boom, beep. Chase listened to the sounds of machines as he tinkered with his Fistigons. His dad hadn’t left him any directions, but it didn’t matter. Chase couldn’t make heads or tails of the twelfth level intelligence jargon his dad spouted off when referring to his work anyway. The son of Stein was much more comfortable reattaching wires by guess work than actual knowledge. 

He had his own system going:

Hiss meant something was burning and he should get the fire extinguisher quick. 

Crackle meant the juice was flowing though he should probably check to make sure it was going where he wanted it to go. 

Boom meant shield his face and chest quick because the thing was in the process of blowing up. 

Beep meant everything was right o’ rain and to carrying on. 

It was a good system. Had saved his life a couple of times – boom – today. 

_Sitting in the protection of superheroes that promised the newly made orphans that no one was going to harm them, Chase thought about his parents. Their corpses were buried at the bottom of the ocean and he knew that his secret desire to make them proud had gone down with them._

_It hadn’t been a strong desire, but now that he was realizing his parents were gone for good, dead, never coming back, in a thousand pieces, Chase thought about the things he wanted that were never going to happen._

_It was really one thing._

_Chase wanted them to smile at him with that proud smile they had had when he was four and had just put together a tiny robot from one of those Lego rip off sets. It was the first time that Pop had hoped he had gotten some of the dear old dad’s genius. From that moment on Mom and Dad had tested, pushed, yelled, at him to be the absolute best he could because of course their son was a genius just like them._

_Except he couldn’t._

_Chase couldn’t understand the math behind an electron collider or the biology of mutants or the theory behind AIs. He got that the red wire went here and powered the machine and the blue button turned the lights on, but that was it._

_He had tried. Oh, how he had tried, but even with his Dad explaining it to him over and over again it still didn’t make sense._

_By the time he was twelve Chase had stopped trying. He gave up completely and if he had that Pops was mean while trying to teach him, it was nothing compared to how he reacted when Chase’s grades plummeted._

_“Chase?” Nico’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts for a minute. “Are you ok-are you going to make it?”_

_“Huh? Yay, I’m good.” The witch looked dubious and he flashed her a grin. “Honest.” She was obviously didn’t believe him, but let it drop. Chase went back to his thoughts on the recently departed. There were surprisingly few and eventually Chase snorted to himself about how his parents hadn’t changed their wiring system in ten years; the only reason he got the Leapfrog up and running. “Stupid rents.” He muttered and refused to admit that he had turned away from the group to hide a tear._

Finally, the Fistigon was bare before him. The metal plates that protected the wires, power cylinders, and microchips, were on the side letting Chase a good view on how the hell his dad had put these together. He let out a whistle at the tightly packed design. Sure, he had studied the blue prints during his brief stint as a time-traveler, but it didn’t compare to seeing how everything actually went together. 

“You son of a bitch. Can’t make anything easy for me can you?” Chase told the empty air and cranked up the music player. Hopefully the noise would drown out any booms that would send the other Runaways running to his garage, looking for a fight. Cracking his neck, the blonde snapped pictures of the gloves from all angles before probing it for the secrets of its creation. For once he was glad Old Lace wasn’t around at the moment. Molly and Klara were playing with her and it was nice for some mental solitude for once. Chase had discovered real quick that there was a limit to how far away Old Lace could be before he stopped hearing her. 

_Chase didn’t think about his parents again until Victor came on the scene. Another Victor at least. This one is a cyborg made by Ultron created to destroy the Avengers and Chase can’t stop from being both distrustful and jealous of him. Distrustful because, duh, he’s suppose to kill all of the Avengers, which include his girlfriend in the future. Jealous….Victor is everything his parents wanted. It’s been over a year since they died and longer than that since he pretend to stop caring that they weren’t happy with him, but Victor. The stupid ass cyborg brings it all to the surface. A super-powered, polite, and most importantly genius kid that understands how the fuck an electron collider worked or how gene modification worked._

_“I don’t care.”_

_Chase tries to convince himself of this for months. He caves when waking up Victor one night from nightmares that the blonde could hear four doors down. Admitting is hard, but he feels better for it._

_The happy feeling doesn’t last._

_Amazing, beautiful, sarcastic, wonderful, cynical, dependable, stunning, honest, wise, the best thing ever Gert is dead. Chase heard her last words, felt her heart stop, her eyes close….._

_Gert is dead._

_Dead because of a fucking younger, time-traveling (He HATES TIME TRAVEL!) Mr. Wilder, killed her._

_Chase is not going to let this stand. He doesn’t care what he has to do, but Gert is coming back. With the ring on his finger and the book in his hand he is going to bring her back._

CRASH! 

The sound is defining as Chase gets sent across the room when he accidentally activates the lighting blasters on the Fistigons. Nothing important is destroyed, but someone is now hammering on his door. Scrambling from off of the floor, he turns off the music. 

“-you not to blow up the garage again!” Nico screams. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Chase shouts back. “Just a little accident! I got it all under control!”

“Bullshit!” She replies and Chase yanks the door open. 

“See?” He told her with a grin. “One hundred percent okay.” The team leader glares at him and Chase knows better than to piss her off further. Just because she doesn’t have the Staff of One on her now doesn’t mean she can’t turn him into a fish again. Nico looks past him and sees the small hole in the wall, but otherwise unharmed garage.

“Don’t get yourself hurt.” She warns him and storms off. 

“Phew.” Chase let out and closed the door. Blasting the music again he starts formulating a plan to build a set of Fistigons for his feet. 

_It’s Gert’s birthday. It should be her birthday today except now it’s just another day that makes Chase remember how she’s NOT HERE._

_No one complains when he vanishes for the day. Not a word is said when he leaves other than ‘be careful’ and he’s grateful for it. Standing over the lump of dirt that’s her not so shallow grave, Chase’s hand on Old Lace is the only thing that keeps him up his feet._

_“I’m sorry, baby.” He tells the buried body. Chase knows that Gert would think it the most stupidest thing in the world that he comes back and apologies over her grave, like she can hear him, but Chase has to. They are eating away at him and if he doesn’t say them it’s like there’s acid in his veins. The woman he loves is dead and it’s all his fault. “I’m so, so sorry.”_

_Old Lace leaves him at that moment and curls up on the pile of dirt, compressing it. Chase doesn’t blame her for moving, Old Lace may obey his commands, but that doesn’t mean the dinosaur loves him like she loves Gert, and falls to his knees._

_“I love you.” Chase tells the grave. “I love you baby, so much. Why couldn’t it have been me?” He repeats that for awhile until the tears overflow and he’s choking on his own breath. “Why couldn’t it have been me? You’re too amazing to die for such a looser.”_

_He doesn’t know how long he’s stays there, but it’s for a long time. His body shakes as it begs for water and his stomach claws at itself as it tries to find food where there is none._

_Old Lace slowly moves herself off the grave, trying to disturb as little of it as possible. The dinosaur nudges Chase with her mouth and says right into his brain:_

You need food.

_“I’ll make it.” Chase chokes out, knowing if he doesn’t leave soon the remaining bits of his family are going to have to bury him too._

Food, water, rest. _Old Lace insists, this time pushing him to his feet._

_“You’re worse than Nico.” Chase mutters, looping an arm around her neck._

Ordered to protect you. I will protect you. _The dinosaur repeats Gert’s last command to it._

_“Same here.” Chase replies as he looks one last time at the mound of dirt before leaving._

Chase held a pencil up in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other. So far the Fistigons were giving him a good idea on how to build his robo-feet. God, that was a terrible name. He’d have to make up a cooler one later, but for now robo-feet would have to do. 

Doodling on the page for a second, Chase hummed along to the music. If the fire makers went there and the control chip went there then he might have enough space to fit in a rocket or two. Maybe. Placing the pencil down, Chase focused again on taking apart his gloves. The wiring was intact, but the chips that ran it were scattered over the table. 

Chase had a system for that too:

Closest chips were the ones he pulled out a second ago. 

Ones to the left were the ones he knew what they did, ones to the right he didn’t. 

He’d have to put it back together again to figure out if this system worked. 

“Burn baby burn, strung out on a wire!” Chase sang as he pulled out a tiny glow cylinder that probably power the whole unit. “Heart in a cage! You’re so full of desire!”

Glad the music was drowning out his terrible singing voice, Chase pulled the last piece of tech that he thought he could get out without completely destroying the Fistigons. 

_Nothing can make this moment okay. Old Lace is gone and the world is upside down. His Uncle Hunter is here and that makes everything even more screwed up. Something Chase hadn’t thought possible a minute ago._

_He has to get away so he bolts. Leaving the rest of the group behind he goes for walk, outwardly holding it together. Inside he’s a wreck and a half. The night when Gert dead, flashes before his eyes, the ghost of the heat of the fire hugs his skin, and Chase is barely aware that he’s in the market that he use to take Gert to when they needed a break from everybody else._

_“I have always lov-“ Gert’s voice echoes in his head over and over and over and over and over and ov-. Chase falls to the ground after bumping into someone “Wow! Watch it!” He takes the hit has the same effect on the other person and as soon as he looks at her, Chase looses all desire to get up. “You should watch where you loiter, there skippy.” Gert tells him._

_Gert tells him._

_Gert, Gert, Gert, Gert._

_“Gert?” He can’t…purple hair, glasses, oh God, she’s snarky as always and, and getting up and walking away. Chase runs after her, the shoulder to shoulder crowd hindering his every move and causing him to panic. Chase has to get to her. Has to talk to her. Has to. Has to make sure he’s not hallucinating because, God this has to be real._

_He finally gets her attention and can’t confirm whether it’s really, truly, absolutely Gert or not because all he sees is her horrified expression and then white lights brought on by pain shuts off his vision._

_Chase finds out after waking up in a hospital that it wasn’t Gert. Sure, she had purple hair and glasses and Gert’s attitude, but the nose was all wrong and the face freckled and so many other little things that he can’t bear himself to think about because for a moment, one precious moment, he thought that it had been her. Chase can’t even bring himself to cry and feels a detached kind of joy when all the Runaways show up and bawl enough to make up for any tears he doesn’t shed._

Rubbing his eyes, Chase wondered if he could find a way to put a coffee machine in the garage. He’s finally gotten all he can out of his robo-disection and has to put everything back. 

First the chips an inch or so away from him, then the power cell, crackle. Pausing, Chase checked that the Fistigons weren’t about to overload and then started putting in the other chips back. The wires are carefully tucked back into their original positions. 

“If you want to get out alivvveeeee,” Chase is completely out of tune, but doesn’t care. It’s a good song and no one is around to complain about his nails on chalkboard voice. “Run for your life! Done!” He exclaims as the last panel goes back on. “Now for the make it or break it moment.”

Sliding the Fistigons onto his hands, the blond flexes then generally moves his hands around. Nothing blows up, so he assumes there’s nothing wrong with any of the joints. Taking a deep breath, he powers them up with a mental command. Lighting crackles and the rockets pop open from their hidden position. Yep, things are working just fine. Chase doesn’t dare fire them and take on Nico’s wrath after she already came by so he takes them off and picks up his robo-feet doodle. 

It looks like something an eighth grader made, but Chase is sure he can make something awesome based on it. Pretty sure. 

_Chase goes down in a ball of fire. It extinguishes as he hits the pavement, but that doesn’t stop his bones from breaking or the burns to go away. Old Lace curls up next to him, knowing the end is coming._

_“Sorry, girl.” Chase gasps out. “Looks……looks like I fucked up on protecting yo-you too huh?” Old Lace doesn’t say anything, but gives him the mental feeling of an ‘I don’t agree’. It was kind of like that look that Gert use to give him when she felt the same way and looked over her glasses at him, but didn’t say a word._

_“Hey cape, Mr., sir.” It took Chase a minute to figure out someone is talking to HIM and rolls his head to the direction, he thinks, the voice is coming from. A woman in a medic uniform was kneeling in front of him. “I’m going to take a look at you, okay? See what I can do.”_

_“To-too late….f-for me.” Chase told her. The woman didn’t listen and started to peel away the smoldering pieces of cloth that had been his shirt. The medic worked and worked, placing gunk on the wounds and trying to get him into a shape where she could move him to the hospital not a block from where they were at._

_Chase couldn’t help, but think about the people he was about to join. Mom, Dad, Gert, Xavin, Alex. Oh God that hurts! Chase shouted in pain, Old Lace thrashing out with her master and nearly clocking the medic in the head._

_“I’m sorry!” She told them. “I won’t do that again, promise.” Chase barely believed her and envied Alex’s fast death. At least the traitor hadn’t had to suffer like this. His had been fast and Chase was certain at this time painless. Lucky bastard. Alex always had been one. Lucky with parents that didn’t expect the impossible of him, lucky that he was smart enough to run circles around anyone if he wanted to, lucky that he had died before anyone he loved kicked the bucket._

_It hurt, it hurt so much. Had Gert’s death hurt this bad? Did she feel this much pain and desire to let all of the Runaways know everything she never told them because everything was coming to an end. Right. NOW._

_“CHASE!” Molly screamed out. Screamed so loud in fact that it cut through the grip of pain and gives the mostly burned blond strength. “CHASE!” She screams again and runs over to him; breaking the concrete and cars in the process._

_“Molly.” Chase chokes out. He can fill his lungs failing._

_“You’re going to be okay,” the young, Chase never really realized just how young, mutant begged him. The medic continues to work frantically to keep him alive as Molly grabs his shoulders. “You-“ Chase cuts her off because anything she wants to happen right now isn’t going to and he has to say this, do this._

_“Take care of Old Lace.” Chase tells her, passing on the psychic connection to Molly as the whole world starts to fade from sight. The orphan, lover, mechanic, big brother in all but blood, and friend struggles to hold onto the sight on Molly. How bright she is, how he knows from all the years of being on the run together she’s going to be fine, especially with Old Lace guarding her back._

Protect her. _Chase tells the dinosaur with his mind._

I will. _Old Lace replies. There is sadness and knowledge in her voice and her last words to him as the link finishes passing on._ I will miss you. 

_Chase smiles at that. Where ever he’s going, he knows he’s going to miss her too._

_“NO! Can’t you help him!?” Molly begs the medic, her eyes frantically pleading for a miracle._

_“I’m trying!” The medic snaps back at her. Chase knows that the medic realizes he’s nine tenths in the grave already and forces his much overworked lungs to give him enough air to speak one last time._

_“You’re amazing Mols,” He tells her honestly. Since he’s not going to get a chance to say goodbye’s to everyone, he’s at least going to make sure Molly knows that. “Don’t forget th-.” And then there’s no more air or life for Chase Stein._

There’s someone hammering at the garage door again and judging by the amount of noise it’s someone a lot stronger than Nico. 

“Coming, coming!” Chase shouts. Switching off the stereo again, he pulls open the door. It’s Molly, but no Klara or Old Lace in sight. “You want something bruiser?” 

“Yeah!” Molly grabs his arm and Chase is way too knowledgeable about her super-strength to try to resist. He is dragged through the house and into the kitchen area where he is met with balloons and streamers and a sign that reads “Happy Birthday!” in silver and red. 

“What’s this about?” Chase asked, trying desperately to remember whose birthday it was and how much he was going to have to suffer for forgetting a gift. His entire remaining family rolls their eyes at him. 

“You silly!” Molly informs him. “I made cake!” Chase blinked hard and fast. His birthday? That couldn’t right. 

“Mols, no offense, but my birthday isn’t until the nineteenth.” Victor badly disguised a laugh as a cough. 

“Chase, it IS the nineteenth.” Nico informed him, pointing at the electrical clock that also had the date on it. The blonde boy couldn’t help, but stare at it for a minute. 

“Huh…” This time it was Victor and Klara trying to cover up their laughter.

“I made cake!” Molly informed him yet again. “And got candles and icing and you, Mr. I Stay in the Garage All Week are going to eat it.” Chase knew a lost battle when he saw one and shrugged then smiled. 

“Got it.” He told the mutant, pushing the hat that she always wore down in front of her eyes. “I’m sure it tastes great.”

“Hey!” Molly complained pushing it back up.  
“Happy birthday Chase.” Klara told him. 

“Thanks.” He responded and took a seat before the slab of cake that was drowned in chocolate icing.


	4. Gertrude Yorkes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life is shit and then you die. But sometimes, sometimes there are good bits in-between.

Gertrude didn’t make it to eighteen. Or seventeen. Her birthdays are pitifully few in number. Not that she cared. Oh, she cared about dying but birthdays not so much. She died at the tail end of sixteen surrounded by her boyfriend, her dinosaur, and fire. Bleeding out while she tried to say what she stupidly thought she would have time later to say. 

_Gert wasn’t special. Her parents knew that the moment she was born and before that. They always knew that their precious child wouldn’t have any superpowers, prophecies determining her fate, or excel at sports, science, or arts. They had traveled to enough futures to know that._

_Which is the reason they sold King John the Bad’s famous missing crown jewels to pay for genetically engineered dinosaur to protect her. It was her father’s idea. Gert will never find out how close she came to getting a griffin for her bat mitzvah._

Before the dagger had flown into her gut, Gert hadn’t believed in fate, especially not the fate that said she was destined to lead the Avengers. The rest of the runaways believed that, but they also tended to forget that she lead them into complete destruction. 

Not something the snarky teen wants to happen. 

It’s a cold comfort that as she struggles to breath she knows she’s right. Fate is pile of s#@%. 

_Gert always spoke her mind. Her parents knew this, her friends, her teachers, people on the opposite side of town. If you had heard of Gertrude Yorks it was usually in the context of ‘that snarky bitch’ or in case of an adult, ‘the violet haired one.’ Adults knew better than to insult the Yorks’ daughter out loud. Either way, once you met her you’d find yourself wishing at least once that Gertrude would keep that sharp tongue in her head._

_Gert didn’t care. As far as she was concerned her wit and quick tongue were the best things about her. Everyone else could be boring morons that ran around like a chicken with their head cut off every time they hit a problem. **She** wasn’t going to put up with it. It was the one thing she liked about Nico when their parents regularly forced them to get together: Nico tried to solve her problems. They disagreed on pretty much everything else from fashion to enslavement of animals but Gert had a deep seated respect for Nico’s willingness to stand her ground on what she believed. Karolina is up there too but she’s far to naïve about the world and right and wrong for Gert to stand being around her for long. _

_It made it easier for Gert not to believe in anything when she has them so willing to fight her over it._

Chase is holding her hands and trying to convince her that she’s going to make it. The fire is burning bright and higher with each word he drops. Gert is trying to cut him off, trying to get him to save his breath while she transfers Old Lace to him.  
It’s one of the things she loves about him. His willingness to throw himself into what he cares about. He always goes all the way from showing the group his secret base instead of skipping out to loving her without reserve when Gert knows she isn’t the hottest thing on the block. F*#$ it, even in the group. Gert may not bat for their team but it’s hard not notice that Karolina and Nico are much prettier than her. 

But Chase kissed her, loved her, and is the one crying over her quickly dying self, and, damnit, she needs to finish talking. 

_Gert’s bat mitzvah is a boring event that’s not helped by the fact that she doesn’t believe in God, doesn’t like anyone here, and her parents dragged her out of bed at six to get ready for this stupid thing._

_So she snarks, and quips, and picks the most annoying passage of the Torah she can think of to read aloud and spends the day getting scolded at by her parents and glared at by distant relatives. No explanation on why only third removed cousins are here, but her parents long ago stopped answering questions about the extended family._

_Gert doesn’t find out until she’s sixteen that her parents killed most of them via time travel. Surfing the time stream tends to wreck the lives of those related by blood._

_She really doesn’t care about this fact when she does learn it. She’s never messing with time. Fate and prophecies be damned, she is not her parents._

She manages to get out to Chase that she forgives him. Manages to pass on the link in its entirety. Old Lace doesn’t want to go. Doesn’t want to give up her place in Gert’s mind. Physically, the dinosaur curls around her as she mentally clings to her mind. The comfortable spot she was made for that even Gert can’t comprehend not being there. But the both of them are not going to die so Gert metally pries it loose and shoves it into Chase. She hauls Old Lace to her boyfriend and chucks her into his head. 

_Protect him._ She orders. _I love you._ She adds. She can barely hear the dinosaur’s acknowledgement over its cries of anguish. 

 

_Middle school sucks. High school isn’t better. Kids are cruel and she doesn’t mesh with any of her classmates. She’s fat, too argumentative, too talkative, too much of a know-it-all. At least, that’s what the kids say. They taunt and tease and push until Gert gets good at giving it back. At running them around in circles with her tongue. At shutting them up with a few words. Eventually they back off. A chance to insult her isn’t worth the snarky comeback that she’ll fire off._

_The thing is, once she starts she doesn’t just keep it to the bullies. Her friends, peers, teachers, parents all get the blade of her tongue at some point. It pushes people away. She goes through middle school mostly friendless and high school with only Nico._

_That’s okay. Gert is not going to change herself for anyone. She’s not going to back down and play nice because people want her to just take what the world dishes out. If that means she doesn’t have friends so be it._

 

It’s getting hard to talk now. Well, it was before, a dagger in the stomach will do that to you, but now it’s becoming impossible to mouth the words that are racing through her head. 

Chase is talking about her future. Still attempting to convince her things will be okay. He doesn’t get that she’s okay with not having a future. Okay with living on the run until death catches up to all of them. Okay with battling C Class super villains and saving the day of ungrateful L.A.ers. She doesn’t want to be some important super hero that leads the world. Doesn’t want that weight on her shoulders. Deep down she knows she can’t handle it. She’s not good enough with people; not the kind of smart that you need to know how to win battles. She can barely stand people on a good day, how the hell is suppose to lead them through death?

She’s trying to explain this to Chase but it gets muddled. Everything is too hot and too weak and too much pain.

_Gert’s not surprised to learn that her parents are evil. They’ve lied to her way too many times for her to believe that they aren’t. Lies about how she looks, the Easter bunny, God, her pet pig. Now she’s definitely sure that they killed him and hid the body. It’s sweet in a bitter, vindictive way. To know that she was right._

_In the privacy of her mind, on dark days where they come back to the Hostel bloody and broken, she thinks she could have lived with being wrong about this one thing. It’s a dream that she dismisses immediately._

_If she had been wrong than she never would have gotten Old Lace. Never would have become family with the kids her parents made her hang out with every year. Never would have fallen in love with Chase and have him love her back. Never would have saved L.A. day after day and maybe the world too. Never would have met Victor or Cloak and Dagger. That’s worth being right._

 

There’s one last thing Gert has to tell Chase. It’s the only thing running around in her head right now. Got to say it. Got to say what she’s been meaning to tell him for months. 

_Things she said with actions (a cup of coffee he didn’t ask for but she knew he needed, a sharpener for his switchblade when it started to get dull, a spot for him on her bed even when it was over 100 Fahrenheit) and others words that weren’t it (An, ‘I know’ or ‘Same here’ cutting him off before he could get his out, an ‘you’re amazing’ when he just got her like no one else, a ‘thank you’ that was said between the sheets when she was pretty sure he wasn’t paying attention.)_

 

“Chase Stein I have always….” She’s trying so hard to speak. Trying to get out that L-word. She can’t feel the rest of her body. Not her legs or her hands that she’s pretty sure Chase is still holding or the pressure of Old Lace against her back. That doesn’t matter though. What matters is that she finally says it before she dies. Come on, just two more words. 

The last thought Gertrude Yorks has is wondering if she actually said love you or if it was just in her head.


	5. Nico Minoru

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Nico, it started as a hobby and then became something more meaningful.

The first skirt is on a whim. It’s not really ‘goth’ but a black thing that goes down to her knees with roses embroidered on it. Nico likes it though. A lot more than her usual jeans and button up t-shirts. A friend mentions that it looks like that Lolita style she saw at a convention once. 

Nico googles it later. There’s too much lace for her tastes but she really likes some of the simpler stuff. There are links to other styles: emo, goth, steampunk, victorian, and so much more. Her parents are knocking on her door and telling her to go to sleep before she realizes she’s spent hours clicking through the images. 

She book marks a few sites and heads to bed. 

_The first spells are so simple, Nico doesn’t even realize her pain is powering her magic. She’s more concerned with the cuts she had to make to get the Staff of One to appear than feeling the energies around her._

_She doesn’t realize she’s getting stronger with every wound she takes, every drop of blood that falls free. She’s thinks she is just getting smart, better at knowing what to ask the staff for. In the beginning, it’s using her more than she’s using it. She asks and it delivers. Being the owner of the Staff of One means the universe is at her disposal as long as she asks nicely and remembers to bleed._

Nico’s hooked. She permanently borrows her mom’s sewing machine and starts making her own clothes. It starts out easy. Embroidering a pattern on a skirt; adding white cuffs to the ends of some of her long sleeves. That was months ago, now she’s making petite coats and dresses and dying other clothes black, grey, and deep red. 

Her friends joke that she’s turning into one of those emo kids or a vampire. Nico laughs along because it’s all in good fun. This is her style now and she loves it. Her parents haven’t said a word about against it. She expected more trouble from then to be honest. Maybe a question about her possibly practicing witchcraft considering how often they go to church. All they did was ask if there was anything bad going on and then listen to her chatter that she’s okay, this style is just really cool. They are really amused by it and don’t bring it up again. 

Later Nico realizes her parents thought she was following in their footsteps all on her own. 

_The Witchbreaker teaches her the meaning of the word pain. Her great-grandmother sets her on fire, tears her apart, stabs her in places she didn’t know she could be stabbed in then puts her back together to do it all over again. The old witch monologues while she does so. Telling Nico she is weak and that this will make her better._

_“The more pain you learn to take the stronger you will become.” Nico tells her she is a bitter old hag. This gets her a dozen knives stabbed into her body._

_Nico hates every second of it, but the beat down works. She starts to feel the magic inside of her and the pain that fuels it. The Witchbreaker forces her to speed past the limits she thought she had. Conquering the pain so when her great-grandmother let’s down her guard for just a second, Nico blows out of there. She’s pretty sure the old hag let her go but she doesn’t care. She’s stronger now. Better able to protect her family against everything the world throws at them._

_One day she might even thank her for showing her just how much she can take._

It’s not easy keeping her style on the run. She doesn’t have access to a sewing machine or the funds to create things from scratch anymore. She ends up repurposing old clothes that she can find at thrift stores. It gets easier when her magic gets stronger but changing an outfit with the snap of her fingers isn’t the same as using needle and thread. 

So, she uses magic most of the time and saves some money to get thread when she can. Eventually she’s able to scrap enough together to look like herself rather than some darkly dressed teenager. It’s a small comfort in a world that doesn’t care about them. 

The other runaways don’t comment on her ever changing and constantly more complex wardrobe or how it drains their funds. They all have their quirks. 

_The Witchbreaker gave her power but completely screwed over her control. Nico finds this out later. After she’s broken up the group, created a zombie monster, and done so much damage that she spends weeks away from everyone trying to regain control. It’s not just the Staff of One. Doing spell work without it ends in the same disasters._

_It is weeks of failures and disasters as she struggles to make the magic do what she wants it to do. She has no one to teach her. No guidance. No mentor. Everything she knows is a slapdash mix of things that have backfired on her and the few words of wisdom her great-grandmother bothered to mention. At least no one else has to pay for her lack of control while she practices. It’s worth the pain to gain it. There’s a burn scar on her shoulder and her knee never works quiet the same afterwards, but she succeeds. Now she commands the magic instead of letting it run wild. The Staff of One seems to reward her. It no longer requires her to speak the words out loud though those get the best result._

_Nico stumbles back to her family exhausted and in the tattered rags that had once been a dress. They don’t talk about why she left. Klara asks her if her witchcraft is working correctly now and that’s it. It’s a relief to be honest. She’s been attacking herself for weeks trying to figure out why things are blowing up, what’s she doing wrong, that she’s not sure if she could handle the rest of the team poking at her right now._

_She collapses on her bed and sleeps the day away. When she wakes she sheds her clothes and takes a shower. Once done, she spots that her favorite dress is laid out. It’s freshly washed with a note from Victor saying that her family has gone out to fight a supervillain and, don’t worry, they will be back soon. Nico worries anyway. They are back before she can go find them though. The team brushes off their bruises and gets pizza to celebrate their victory._

_Nico shows them that her powers are now under control by creating an illusion of faeries and centaurs without the help of the Staff of One._

Her style changes over the years. It comes as no surprise. She’s no longer the fourteen year old that first surfed the web for ideas. Her clothes get a distinct new victorian look to them with thick skirts that only go down to her knees, corsets just for her waist, and lace trimming the edges of her collar and cuffs. 

She finds herself moving away from the crimson and white with a bit of black to black and burgundy. Maybe a little white thrown in there to outline the sleeves or hem. Nico doesn’t think about it. Her clothes keep her sane. Magiking the material and then putting them together soothes her heart and gives her something to do that won’t end in disaster if she fails. 

Like she failed Alex and Gert and Xavin and Chase and so many people. No deaths were caused because she missed a stitch or measured wrong. 

 

_Grief, Nico finds out, is its own kind of power. Like all her revelations it comes too late to do any good. The explosion has ripped through Victor and she can feel the shockwave miles away back on earth._

_She screams for him. For her lover, boyfriend, father of her kids, and the too good for her man that he is. He doesn’t come back. Brothers of the Serpent are still fighting them but not for long. Grief is pain and pain is her power. Nico unleashes it on them and doesn’t care how many of them don’t get back up when she does._

_The team retreats to bury Victor except there’s nothing left of him. He’s been vaporized in space and the few specks remaining have already been scattered across the cosmos. Nico wishes she had learned this lesson with Cindy. When the bitch had killed Klara and almost done the same to her kids. Instead there had only been a cold fury that had swamped her._

_“Do you know what we do to traitors Cindy?” She remembers saying. **“We rip their damn hearts out.”** _

_Nico remembers holding the liar’s heart in her hand and being satisfied. She doesn’t feel satisfied now. She feels alone and devastated. She sinks to her knees in their bedroom, now her bed because Victor is gone, and mumbles through her prayers. The words are all she has now. Nico grips her faith tightly even though she has blood on her hands and a darkness in her heart. These prayers aren’t for her so maybe God will listen to them._

_Afterwards she goes to Maria and Charlie and doesn’t leave their side. Xavin takes over field command without a word, the lasts bits of her family listen to him/her without complaint._

In her final year, Nico’s wardrobe doesn’t change. There’s no longer any white in it. Only greys, blacks, and reds. People had joked before that she looked like she was in mourning but they say nothing now that she is. 

In mourning for her family, her friends. Dressed in black for the dead, grey for the guilt of her mistakes, and red for the blood on her hands. She stops stitching clothes for herself. Her children are the only reason she picks up a needle and thread. For them she’ll add purples and blues and yellows to their shirts and pants. For them, she’ll try to remember a time when she dressed this way because she liked it. When she appreciated the way the fabrics contrasted and not how it made people uncomfortable around her. 

She’s dressed for death and she’s not afraid to make it yours if you come near the remains of her family. 

_Nico’s end is a bullet to the head in mid-incantation. She’s twenty-four, a mother, leader, and sorceress. She has revived the dead, bested supervillains and heroes, and survived more dangerous situations then this. She has led her family for nearly a decade and it shows. Which is why the villain went after her children to distract her while his minion came up from behind._

_It doesn’t matter. Nico is strong and master of her pain. The spell finishes without her being alive. Time stops. Her enemies freeze. Maria and Charlie can still move as they are right next to her. Her son catches her falling body. Her daughter begs her to wake up. When its clear Nico won’t, Maria grabs the Staff of One and shouts her first true spell._

_It’s ‘Stop it!’_

_Nico will never know. Twenty-four is a lot more birthdays than most runaways have but it was not enough. It was never going to be enough._


	6. Victor Mancha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to determine what's real and what's not, but luckily Victor has a starting point.

_Victor has just turned six. He thinks he's fifteen. Or maybe he's four or three or maybe age doesn't count for a cyborg._

_It matters to him though._

_It matters because he needs to know when he can start separating the fake memories from the real ones._

_He's the only runaway that wants to remember their past as much as the present._

"I'm off! Love you!" He tells his mom as he heads out the door. The school is twenty minutes away and he has almost an hour to get there, but it's his first day at his new school and he doesn't want to risk being late. Victor Mancha is glad they moved to L.A. for his mom's new job except now he has to start a high school in a new city.

"Que tengas un buen día!" His mother calls out just as the door close. Victor doesn't know it, but this was the first time he told his mother that. Not the hundredth, thousandth, millionth, time like his memories say it is. Or maybe it is the hundredth, thousandth time. Victor can't figure out when his mother met Ultron and his memories are lies, lies, lies.

_This, Victor thinks. This is definitely real. It is his first birthday with the runaways. Sure, the cake is several days over due (mostly his fault, he hadn't mentioned it until last night during a brutal game of monopoly) and it's over cooked but they remembered and it gives Victor a little bit of hope that maybe, finally, he's fitting in with them._

_He's got memories of other birthdays but they all are questionable. Every single one of his memories before he went on the run are tainted. Ultron designed them to make Victor the perfect Avengers candidate and he can't help but feel like the killer robot pissed on his childhood when he reveal the truth. Dunked it in the sick, yellow color of urine and then handed them back to him to deal with the mess._

"I love you guys." They've just survived a close shave with another super villain trying to take over L.A. They are speeding away from the scene as the police sirens get close. The bad guy is out like a light and tied up three ways to Sunday so they get out of there.

"You're welcome." Chase says from the Leapfrog's pilot seat. It was him that saved Victor's hide when it turned out that the villain could control water. Victor is soaking wet and very conscience that this is the first time he's said those words to anyone but his mother. He's only been with the group for a few months and it feels like a major confession. He likes them. Likes Nico, Gert, Molly, Old Lace, and even Chase. He misses Karolina (though he still prays that one day she'll come back to earth.) He doesn't know if they should know this. Wants to take it back so they can't reject it.

But then Molly says she loves him too and Nico nods and Gert makes some kind of affirmative noise that he takes as agreement with the rest of them. It's not a ringing sound of endorsement. They are all exhausted and it's more of a 'thanks for saving me, I'm going to sleep now' than a heartfelt 'welcome to the family' but he'll take it.

He knows they are just gears and wiring but something warm works its way up into his chest and he relaxes in his seat.

_This is real. He doesn't want it to be. He doesn't want Gert to have joined his mom in Heaven. He doesn't want Chase and Old Lace to be missing as the rest of the group mourns. He doesn't want to have his first time to be with Nico as they both try to find something good in today. As they pretend they aren't crying and breaking. He doesn't want to have had to admit that he likes Nico as more than just a friend while he sits on her bed and tries to wipe away the tears as she talks about Gert._

_But it is._

_This is how he says goodbye to Gert. A mumbled prayer as she's packed under the dirt behind the Hollywood sign. Molly clinging to his waist as she sobs._

_This is how stumble into he and Nico stumble into a relationship. Victor cares about Nico a lot. She's brave, beautiful, in charge of her life, and makes him feel less lost. But he doesn't want them to be a thing because they are both mourning. Doesn't want to put his feelings out there if she doesn't return them. But this is real so he doesn't get a choice._

"Te amo." Nico tilts her head up at him. They are sitting on a couch. He's got one arm around her shoulder while her legs are in his lap. It has been a while since they've had some alone time. Molly and Klara are off playing at the beach while Old Lace keeps one eye on them and naps in the sun. Karolina is making a grocery run.

He's not sure if he should have said it. They've only been together for a few months. Sure, he has known her for years. Through deaths and break ups and running because their lives depended on it. They are dating right now and it feels more solid then any of their previous attempts at romance so Victor mutters the Spanish version of those three little words in hopes that either she won't understand or accept it. Nico smiles a little. A tiny up turn of her lips that makes him happy even though there's s storm of butterflies in his stomach.

"I love you too."

_He walks into a church that his memories tell him was real and that he spent his childhood here every Sunday before his mom moved to L.A._

_His memories of before running away are not all un-true and that's the worst. Because he walked into the church and was hit with all the things that are the same and then backhanded by the differences. Yes, the cathedral is tall and there are brass pipe organs in the back, but the smell is off and the seats aren't comfortable like he remembers._

_The priest doesn't remember him either. Victor speaks with him after service and mentions that he visited once or twice with his mom when he was small. There's no recognition in the holy man's eyes though he says he's glad that Victor has returned._

_The cyborg doesn't stick around. He walks out the doors as the bells ring (Ultron got that right at least) and keeps going as his heart threatens to constrict enough to kill him. He's not sure why he's upset. He was supposed to find out that his time here was a lie. Suppose to be able to determine exactly when he was 'turned on' and started to pretend he was a real boy. To use this to put a date on it so that he could know for sure which memories are lies and which aren't._

_But it still hurts. He has a lot of good memories here that have just been ripped away. Vanished like a dream you can't remember but desperately want to. He's more human than ever now. The nano machines inside him have been successfully making him organic. A few years after finding out the truth, he's got real bones and a few organs in him as he found out the last time he got seriously hurt. Maybe that's why this is hitting so hard. He's more human than he was before._

_Victor pulls out a notebook and crosses the church off the list. He's got one last place to check before he'll have a date to when the lies stop. It shouldn't take long. Just a matter of hacking the data bank of the middle school his head tells him his mom sent him to. Then he can go home, back to Nico and Molly and the rest of his family that he's found._

"Almost there." Klara's voice was tired but pleased. She had been helping Nico deliver their children into the world in the back of the Leapfrog because the Young Avengers had called them for help halfway around the world. Victor hates them a little for this but they had been dealing with traitors in the Avengers and he could understand why they wanted some outside help to handle them. Their group didn't hang with super heroes. The few they did get along range between 'let's go for coffee when you're in town' or 'you stay out of my way and I'll stay out of yours.' Karolina dated Julie Powers of the West Coast Avengers for a bit but it fizzled out when the supers moved to Washington. So, yeah. He understands why the Young Avengers contacted them but it doesn't make him feel any better about them asking.

Or not turning them down, or not finishing earlier, or not being able to convince Nico to stay behind. They are out over the freaking Atlantic Ocean when Nico's water breaks and he couldn't even pretend he's going to get to New York in time to find a hospital.

Not that they were planning on using a hospital in the first place. All of Victor's paper work is forged, Nico's months away from being eighteen, and neither of them have real address or legal work. The CPS would snatch the kids up before either of them could blink. The superhero community ignored them because they but bad guys away, Molly and Klara were old enough not to require a lot of raising, and none of them wanted to tear a family apart even if it was self made. The government was not so caring.

Cloak and Dagger had come through for them and gotten them in touch with a midwife in California would have helped with the delivery. Apparently she was friends with a lady who patched up superheroes when it wasn't bad enough to require surgery. She was in Montana right now and they had to make due with Klara who's knowledge admittedly came from the 20th century when she helped her mother out a few times.

"All done." She calls out. Victor leaves the pilot seat and turns around. There's a lot more blood than he was expecting. It had soaked throw the blankets that were permanently stashed behind a seat. Karolina had stripped offer her jacket so that they could have something to wrap one of the kids in while Klara had given up her cloak for the other. Molly's hat had gone behind Nico's head to given her some support.

Nico is sweaty and disheveled and staring at the two bundles of life in her arms like there is nothing else in the room. Victor kneels down beside her. They are so tiny. Their faces just barely visible under the makeshift swaddling cloth.

"What do you think?" She asks softly.

"About what?"

"Names. We've got a boy and a girl now."

"Maria?" He's thrown this name out before but Nico hadn't seemed to keen on it. She tilts and looks at their little girl.

"I was thinking Gertrude." She said softly. Victor swallows. She hadn't mentioned that before.

"Maria Gertrude?" Nico is silent before nodding.

"Maria Gertrude Mancha." She says firmly. Victor blinks at the statement. He hadn't expected that. Not since Nico refused his proposal when he first found out she was pregnant. "And Charlie Chase Mancha."

"I like them." And he does. He really, really does.

"They are good names." Klara says as she gathers up the dirty blankets.

"Definitely things you can shout when they've been bad." Molly adds.

"Do you want to hold them?" Nico half turns towards him. He nods and takes both kids carefully. They don't make a noise, don't seem to notice that they been handed from one parent to another.

"Yo soy tu padre y Te amo." He tells them softly. Suddenly the job seems too big. He's not enough to raise these little beings in such a big, hard world made up of lies and painful truths.

"You too are going to be great parents." Molly says with a grin. He hopes so. He really hopes so.

_This is a lie._

_He knows it's a lie because he's at his seventh birthday and he's not seven. He's never been seven. He was made a teenager and everything from before is fake. He never ran around a playground, going from swing to swing, and slide to slide. He was never small enough to play with them. The first time he really saw one he was too old._

_It's a nice memory though. One of his favorite of the tainted. His mom took him here after work. She bought him ice cream and let him play until he was literally too tired to move. There was a small cake waiting for them back home, but Victor always liked the afternoon spent playing with his overworked mom the best._

_This is a lie because he has kids of his own and a girlfriend that loves him and this never happened._

_Struggling, Victor realizes this isn't a dream either. He's not waking up. This is too vivid to be him remembering. The images start to warp as he prods his reality. Ruling out everything but some kind of villain sticking him into a Lotus Machine. He fights his way out of it. Ignoring his mother's calls to play and the sunny day. Racing through the streets for his family that isn't here causing the whole thing to shatter._

_He wakes up in the back of truck. Bound along side a similarly tied up Nico and on their way to somewhere he suspects has empty graves with their names on it. He escapes the things holding them and wakes Nico. A fight breaks out during it, but they escape intact for once. Sometimes taking the jobs that Hunter gives them just isn't worth the paycheck._

_"How did you break out of it?" Nico asks him later as they triple that the kids are safe. The close call today has rattled both of them._

_"He picked one of Ultron's memories." Victor doesn't add anything and Nico doesn't say anything back, but there's an arm around his shoulder and her head resting against it. It's soothing._

There's no time for I love you's. There's no time for goodbyes and farwells. There's a pym particle bomb in front of him and his family behind him fighting for all they are worth.

They aren't going to get here in time to help. Victor has no way to disarm it. He does the only thing he can and grabs it and flies. He can curse Ultron for a lot of things, but the villain made him powerful (he expected him to be able to kill the entire Avengers after all and he's only gotten stronger with age.) So, Victor flies until he hits space and uses the momentum to keep going.

He thinks about how he got to say 'I love you' to Maria and Charlie this morning over breakfast. How he said it to Nico just before they jumped in to deal with the terrorists. He's lucky, he knows, that he was able to say those words. That he found a family to love of blood and not. That he fell in love with L.A. despite the supervillains and the heat that messes with his tech and the media who are borderline suicidal for a story. That he gets to save the world and his family from death one more time.

He loves all of that and that's the one thing he has always known wasn't a lie. It's not a bad way to spend his birthday.

**BOOM**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations from Spanish:
> 
> Have a good day!
> 
> I love you.
> 
> I am your dad and I love you.
> 
> I apologize for butchering it. All I had was Google translate.


End file.
